2. Don’t be the Asshole.
By my definition, you are being the asshole when you violate any of the eight Divine Love conditions explained in Aphrodite’s Thealogy of Perfection: acceptance for your true self, sovereignty to live with free-will, resources to thrive, affection of your preference, expression of your truth, security on all levels, authenticity without exploitation, and trustworthiness. Think of any example of conflict and see which one of those conditions it violated. It’s usually pretty clear who is harming whom.
“These Eight words the Rede fulfill: An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will.” (1)
With every action we take, our interactions with people, animals, society, the unseen hosts, or the natural world, we have a choice: benefit or detriment. This can take enormous powers of discretion to navigate because the exact same action in one scenario makes you the asshole, and in another scenario makes you the hero.
3. Don’t be the Weak Link
Circling back to the Mabon Day Revelations: As I lay there drifting off, I pondered a third rule, and all I wanted it to express, but didn’t yet have a pithy way to say it. In the twilight between dreaming and waking, I mull over how responsibility is about choice and strong character, regardless if anyone else notices, or you’re surrounded by folks who can’t be trusted. *YOU* can be trusted, and that creates for you a strong sphere of influence. Something like, “Responsibility begins and ends with you.” Boring, right? Oh, and how important is the circle to the Witch, am I right? Everything is more effective in the sacred circle.
The Vision takes over, and I see the fabric of the Universe, matter and spirit woven together. I’ve always imagined it with the warp and weft of a tapestry, but that shifts and instead it becomes a cloth of chainmail with each being within it their own circle link. They are pliable enough to have free will, sovereign and strong enough on their own, but together…together, they can do so much more!
If all links remain strong within their own character, beginning and ending every interaction in alignment with their moral compass; if we use our power to cohesively weave together a responsible world within our own sphere of influence, then together we can all coexist in harmony, to ENORMOUS, reverberating benefit.
Then the vision shifted and I saw how if one link weakens; sees themselves as a straight line pointing only to their own ego; “burns” themselves through self-loathing, or projects that onto others as distrust; if they become the asshole who wields their own wound as a weapon to wound other people; through this weakness of character they betray the bonds of the surrounding links. If they exploit the natural environment, disrupting their relationship to the Divine through each other, then that hole in the chainmail grows, and ruins things exponentially throughout existence. It was like watching a fuse burn to ash; the chainmail image crumbled into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
There is your three-fold law of return demonstrated! If we exude beneficial energy in the world, we are benefited. If we exude destructive energy in the world, we are destroyed, but we are all in this together. If we work with unity, for unity, all of Divine creation flows with us. It is so simple. It only takes one weak link to ruin the “armor” of harmonious existence for everyone.
“Don’t be the Weak Link” blazes into my mind’s eye, glowing as if written in green neon lights. YES! That’s it! How pithy. How cliche. How marvelous.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In